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Culture may close the book on shops

Anonymous Patron writes "Another one on the Indys closing: ContraCostaTimes.com: Ross and many other independent booksellers in the Bay Area share a common lament over a grim or nonexistent future for some of the most cherished havens for book lovers and strongest venues for visiting authors. Many cite Amazon.com and the proliferation of big chain bookstores. But there are other factors, they say, that have piled straw on the backs of businesses that face thin profit margins and stiff competition from discounters. They range from the dot-com blowup to bad city planning, to a societal turn toward laptop literacy."

I recently tried to order a book online and off from our big box bookstore and because it was not in their database, it didn't exist for them. I said "I have the ISBN, the author, the publisher, the title!" Didn't matter. So yes, I went to one of our independent bookstores where they ordered it for me immediately.